I am so thrilled to have Yvette Marquez-Sharpnack of Muy Bueno joining me here on the show today.

(*All photos below are Yvette’s.)

On The Role Food Played in Her Home:

I grew up in El Paso, Texas, which so many people think, “Oh, you have Tex-Mex food,” but if you’ve ever been to El Paso, it’s pretty much Mexico. Our home is literally a mile away from the Juarez Mexico border. My grandmother came from Chihuahua, Mexico, when she was 10 years old. She’s passed away. She passed away when she was 98 years old, but my mom was a single parent and we lived next door to my grandma. So it was basically my mom and my grandma who raised me, and it was food all the time. It was either see my mom in the kitchen all the time or my grandma in the kitchen. And that was why I named “Muy Bueno” what it is because my grandma would always be in the kitchen, and just anytime any visitors would come, she would always say, “Siéntate a comer, esta muy bueno,” which means, “Sit down, come and eat, it’s very good.” And so every time I thought about my grandma and trying to come up with a blog name, that name just kept coming to me.

My grandma was just always in the kitchen and I was always in there with her. I just loved to sit there and watch her make homemade flour tortillas. And I just couldn’t wait to get home from school and just sit there and just listen to her stories. She would just tell me, you know, growing up in the ranch in Chihuahua, Mexico, and during the Mexican revolution, and crossing over to Texas with her family when she was only 10 years old, and just how scary it was. And the things that she experienced, I just found it fascinating. I could just hear her stories over and over and over again. I just loved sitting there and just watching her cook. And that was what I fell in love with.

Although, growing up, what’s so funny is seeing her in the kitchen, my mom always in the kitchen, that was where I did not want to be. I just felt like they were under appreciated and just always there. But as I became a mom, I realized that’s just your gift to your family. And that’s your showing your love to your family, and that’s when I fell in love with cooking, once I had my own children. But in my teens and college, I was like anti the kitchen, anti-cooking.

On Rediscovering the Kitchen:

Everybody would tease me, my family would, especially my brother. He’s seven years older than me and he still teases me, thinking, “Oh, you still don’t cook. You just play one on the Internet.” Because he would be the biggest one. My grandma, too, would say I’m never gonna find a man because I didn’t like the kitchen. It was just like a running family joke. But it’s not that I didn’t know how to cook. I just chose not to cook. My love in the kitchen was when I would entertain. I would love to have friends and family over, and that’s when I would get creative and have fun, when I knew I could cook for a crowd.

It was until I had children, I was like, “Okay, now I kinda have to cook.” So that’s when I started calling my mom and asking, “Okay, How do I make some of these recipes?” She never had it written down. I never bothered to write them down. I would just make them as she was telling me over the phone. And so that’s how I would learn some of the traditional dishes that I grew up with.

Still to this day, when I make a dish that my grandma would make often, I just seriously feel her. I just know that she’s watching me and guiding me in the kitchen. So it’s really cool.

On Her Cookbook, Muy Bueno: Three Generations of Authentic Mexican Flavor:

That was really challenging when we tried to come up with our tagline or subheading. It’s like authentic could be very misleading, I guess. People could be very judgmental when it comes to any type of cuisine, whether it’s authentic or not authentic. Everybody’s definition of authenticity is very different. And when it comes to cooking, it depends on what region. I just came back from Oaxaca, Mexico, and there were so many dishes and ingredients that I have never heard of. So my chicken mole is completely different than a mole that’s made in Oaxaca, Mexico. That’s why we named it “authentic flavor.” We’re not claiming that it’s authentic Mexican, but that it’s authentic to us, and it’s the flavor of Mexico that we know and love.

I just posted a recipe not too long ago of this very authentic traditional dish called chiles en nogada. And it’s not a dish that we necessarily grew up with, but I researched it enough and learned how to make it to share it with my fans. And there’ll always be somebody who’s like, “No, this is not authentic, because an authentic chiles en nogada, you have to peel the walnuts.” And it’s like, sometimes, I skip steps to try and make it easy for the everyday cook. Who has a time to be peeling walnuts?

So just little things like that, I try to make dishes that are authentic in flavor, but are easier to make and maybe adding a spin where it’s a healthier dish or just making it more simple, but keeping those traditional and authentic flavors in there.

On Co-Writing a Second Cookbook, Latin Twist: Traditional & Modern Cocktails:

It was funny because you never know who you’re gonna meet. That’s what I love about blogging is it’s opened up so many new relationships that sitting in my old job in a cubicle, I would have never had the opportunity to meet. And Vianney is another Latina blogger who is from Texas. So we automatically had that connection, and I followed her blog, she followed my blog. And one event, we went with Nestle to go to California and be a part of a tamalada.

And that evening, we were both flying out and had a long delay at the LA airport. We’re like, “Let’s get some cocktails.” And so we started with one cocktail, and another cocktail. She has a great section in her blog that’s called Margarita Love. And so I kept telling her, “Vianney, you need to write a margarita cookbook, you know, margarita cocktail book.” She’s like, “Yeah, that’s my goal. I wanna do that.” I was like, “Well, let me know if you need help, and I can design it for you, or I can talk to the publisher that I worked with and see if they might be interested.” And she was like, “Okay, okay.”

And so then, after I was on the plane and we parted ways, I was thinking, “I need to do something with her. I don’t wanna steal her thunder with a margarita book, because I would love for her to still do that on her own, but we need to team up together and write a cocktail book, not only just of margaritas, and not only just of Mexican cocktails, but cocktails of Latin America and Spain. And so that’s how the idea started. I approached her saying, “How about we team up together and we write a cocktail book together and share both of our loves of these fun cocktails that usually end up being Latin-inspired.”

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I love anything with Giada or Rick Bayless or Pati Jinich. It’s not so much of the show, but more about who’s cooking and who captivates my attention.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

I would say White on Rice Couple. I’ve just always loved their photography style and just their whole life in general. They have this gorgeous garden and these orchards. It just looks fabulous. I also love Matt Bites, Matt Armendariz. I just love that he’s a Latino. He seems like he would be a fun friend. I love his photography and his styling. He works with his partner who has an amazing eye for food styling. And just together, they do some magic. For me, it’s all about visuals and photography, and capturing the story with it. And so those blogs have always kept my interest.

I also love Foodiecrush. She has an amazing, a completely different sense of style, where I think it’s more modern and clean, and she also has a background in graphic design. So I love her clean space when it comes to styling food.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

I follow a lot of yogis on Instagram. I just love yoga girl, and she just always has some inspirational messages. It’s just neat to see all these amazing yoga poses that she does in the middle of nowhere, or like super tropical, exotic amazing spaces. But I just love that she always has positive messages or inspiring quotes, always to her photos.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

That’s an easy one. It’s my grandmother’s rolling pin. After she passed away, my mom asked me what it was that I would love from my grandma, and I just wanted that rolling pin that she would make flour tortillas with every day. And so come to find out she had two rolling pins, and my sister asked for one too. So we each got a rolling pin. I think it’s kind of like a baton, like your turn. It’s time to continue that legacy and those traditions of food with your family.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

I would say nopales, which are cactus petals. It’s not even so much that I didn’t love it. It’s just we didn’t really grow up eating them very often. When I saw them, it was more in a jar and they just looked slimy and they just didn’t appeal to me. And so it was not, until recently, where it’s like you can honestly get them fresh. I put them in a smoothie every morning or mix some scrambled eggs or just in a fresh salad, it’s just such a fun ingredient that I think it’s underrated and it needs to be used more often.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I love Rick Bayless. I love Pati Jinich. I also love Marcela Valladolid. Anything Mexican, I just love to, not only read the recipes, but read their history or learn how they make the recipes. It’s just interesting, because you can have a tres leches cake in all the books, and they’ll all be completely different. I love seeing the variety of the same Mexican dish and how it’s made by different Mexican chefs.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I would say any old Mexican music. There’s Paloma Blanca, which is a white dove. And there’s another one called De Colores. So they’re just two old Mexican songs, and it’s like I’m flooded back with feelings of my grandma, racing to go pump up the volume and sing. Now I sing those songs and turn up the volume for those songs, and just know that grandma is there watching me cook, singing with me.

Monique started her blog at the end of 2011 to share her love of healthy, nutritious food and baking, and in less than three years was able to quit her full-time corporate job to work on Ambitious Kitchen full-time. Most of Monique’s food is geared towards those with active, healthy lifestyles, and she enjoys getting creative in the kitchen with unique ingredients – pairing different flavor combinations and playing with gluten-free and vegan recipes. She’s been featured in The Huffington post, Buzzfeed and Today.com just to name a few.

On Finding Time to Write About Her Food Adventures:

I think it has always been a goal of mine to start a blog. I just didn’t know where to begin, and so it took me about six months to get the guts and just say, “Okay, I need to start this.”

I worked a lot on my site on the weekends or after work. To be honest, it became this passion project, something that I just really, really enjoyed. So I’d come home and make a recipe, and then I’d photograph it really quick, and then I’d put it on my site. It was just learn as you go.

I was very familiar with the social media so that wasn’t a really big deal for me. But when I first started, I had no intention of blogging full-time. It was just really this thing that I really, really loved. I wanted to share my passion for food and nutrition with other people. It was about two years when I thought, “Okay, maybe I could do this full-time.” It involved me really working on it, every single night after work pretty much, and my weekends were devoted to photography and recipe testing. So it was basically working two full-time jobs for a long time.

The photography was a huge thing because I took one photography class in high school, and I was pretty good with it, but I had no idea what I was doing. I think it was about a year into my blog when I bought a Canon DSLR and started taking shots that were a little more professional. Before I was taking it with my point-and-shoot, and things were blurry. And I think no one really cared at that point. I got my professional camera, and things really changed, and I had to really pay attention. The whole editing process, it can take up to two or three hours. So that was really time consuming for me, and I had to learn how to, I guess, get that time down so that I was able to still blog and have my job.

On Turning Her Blog into Her Full-Time Career:

I really had to be strategic about what I was doing on social media. So that meant scheduling out my Facebook posts, scheduling out things on Pinterest and on Twitter. That was a really critical step, and then just making sure that I had a content calendar for myself. When I first started, I would just post whenever I felt like it, when I had time. Once I started committing to three posts a week or even more than that, I saw my traffic increase tremendously. It was crazy growth. I think that was a step in taking it full-time and also being organized and financially ready.

I thought about it every day for six months, and I remember I would complain about how much I didn’t like my job and how much I wanted to blog full-time. I think it just took a lot of courage to be able to do it. And so after six months of complaining, one day, I really didn’t have a plan. I was going to wait three more months, and then one day, I was just like, “Okay, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do this.” So I went into my job, and I handed in my two weeks, and that was it, never looked back.

On Her Passion for Health and Fitness:

It was definitely something I picked up along the way. I really wasn’t conscious about the food that I was putting in my body until about my junior year of college. I was just at a point where I had gained weight. I was unhappy with the way I looked. I was not very confident. For me, it was this breaking point where I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t keep eating ranch or ketchup and french fries all the time.” So really for me, I had to teach myself about nutrition. I read every single women’s fitness and nutrition magazine out there. I purchased books. I just taught myself how to make healthy, wholesome meals. That was really my foundation. I don’t have a professional background in nutrition, but it’s very much become a passion of mine.

On a Misconception of Eating Healthy:

I think that people think that it’s really, really boring, and just because it’s ‘clean eating’ or ‘healthy eating’ that it’s just a chicken breast and asparagus and a sweet potato every single night. That was what I thought about it. It was just like, “It’s so boring. You can never have a burger,” but that’s not necessarily true. I think you can make really beautiful, healthy food, and it’s all about having nutritious ingredients.

When I first started, I was using a lot of sugar-free things because I thought that that meant that they were healthy, and I think a lot of people might think low-fat or sugar-free, but as I continued to learn about food and health, I learned that it’s good to have those healthy fats like avocados and nut butters and coconut oil and lean meats and vegetables. So that was a really big step in learning how to eat healthy for me.

You can be healthy and have nutritious food, but it doesn’t have to be boring. You just have to figure out a way to make the ingredients work for you.

On a Simple Way to Start Eating More Healthy:

I think the simplest way is probably meal prep, so making a list and going to the grocery store prepared so that you’re not buying a bunch of things that are unnecessary. What I like to do is plan out my meals before I go to the store. So I’ll say, “Where are all the ingredients I need? How can I make this meal a little more nutritious? Maybe adding in spinach to pasta,” or something like that. That has been a game changer for me.

On Her Summer Sweat Series:

I have a really good friend named Lee, and she also runs a blog called, Fit Foodie Finds. We’ve been friends for a few years. We both grew up in Minnesota, and one time we were on this vacation together, and we just thought, “Oh my gosh, what if we put together a fitness and nutrition program and just see what people thought about it?” We started the Summer Sweat series back in June. It was a six-week challenge, and people were just so in love with it. It came with meal plans. There were a bunch of different workouts. We worked with a personal trainer. So it was just something fun and different and a great way to bring traffic to both of our sites during what we call the summer slump where everyone’s outside and not on the Internet. So yeah, we’re doing it again this year, and we’re really, really excited.

I really, really love What’s Gaby Cooking, and she has just a really great approach to healthy and indulgent food, and beautiful photography. You can pretty much find any recipe you’re looking for. FoodieCrush is another great one. If you like baking, Sarah of Broma Bakery who I think has already been on your site, is a very good friend of mine, and for healthy recipes, Skinnytaste is another good one.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

I really like following Andie Mitchell. She wrote a book, a memoir actually, and she’s just really inspiring and just a fantastic woman. It’s been so fun to follow her journey. She’s lost over 130 pounds and is just truly inspirational. So I follow her on Instagram, and then also I follow her blog.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

I have an avocado slicer. It’s really helpful, so I don’t have to do it with my knife and chop off my hand when I’m try to get the pit out. It does it all for you.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Olives. My brother told me when I was a little girl that olives were, I think he said snails. I was five and I believed him for the longest time. Every time I looked at olives, it was just gross to me, but now I love them, especially black olives. I love putting them on my pizza and in my salads.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I have a lot of cookbooks. Skinnytaste, she has the website and she also came out with a really great cookbook. I love it because my boyfriend tends to not eat healthy but it has a lot of healthy meals, so we cook from it. Another great one is, Back In The Day Bakery cookbook. It’s just a fun baking one. There are a lot of cakes and cookies and pies, so I always use that for when I’m baking for my family and special occasions. I think those are my go-to’s.

Lauren is a foodie, recipe developer, adventure seeker, photography lover, and world traveler. She started her blog, Climbing Grier Mountain, in 2010 to stay connected with family and since then, it has become her passion. It’s where she shares her shenanigans and most authentic self.

On Being Such an Open Book:

Starting off, I grew up in a small town in Kansas. My husband and I met in college and we graduated and went right to the big city of Chicago. So I think that’s where my adventurous side was born. Chicago is… they throw you right in and you just have to start swimming and figure it out. From there, I just really opened up and figured out, you know what? There’s more to me than I think. I started writing my own story, just really being curious about why are things the way they are when it comes to cooking or travel or whatever it is.

It was definitely a cultural awakening, coming from a small town in Kansas to me just being around people that were challenging you every day in terms of growth. It was a great experience. I miss that city. I don’t miss the weather but it was definitely a great city to start my adventure.

On Starting Her Blog in 2010:

In general, there were no manuals for blogging. Today, you’ll see ‘how to start a blog 101’. Back then, it was like the Wild West in terms of like you’re still using Blogger as a platform and it was just a very quiet space. People were trying to figure out photography and just how to share in general on the Internet because all these platforms were starting to pop up. So that was the biggest challenge. I had to do a lot more research, a lot more trial and errors. I feel like today, it’s a lot easier for bloggers to start up because there is a manual out there. There is ‘how to improve your photography’, ‘how to write recipes’ and those kind of things, and how to really actually start the blog from the ground up. Whereas, I feel like in 2010, it was not the case at all.

I mean, most people never say they dreamed about making money back in the day, but now, people literally start blogging to make money and it’s amazing to me. I think it’s fantastic, it’s just a different perspective now. I think this industry is growing and changing constantly. So it’ll be interesting to see where it’s at in two years.

On Her Interest Around Food:

I hated cooking and when I got married, I didn’t even know how to boil water. It was that bad. I took on the concept and when we moved from Chicago to Denver, I was working in the financial industry. I still am today but at the time, when the market crashed, I lost my job and between looking for jobs and interviews, I watched the Food Network during the day and I was like, “You know what, I’m a newlywed. I probably should learn how to brown meat or do something functional so we can eat and not eat out all the time.” So from there, I just literally, with the blog, I was like, “You know what? If I can teach myself how to cook, maybe I can teach others,” and it slowly progressed. So no, my love for cooking didn’t form probably until about 10 years ago. So it’s kind of funny.

It was actually kind of a funny story. So, it was a Giada recipe and it was for a swordfish bake sandwich with some arugula and lemon aioli, which was basically like Mandarin to me at the time because I had no idea what aioli was. I remember going to the store and getting all of the ingredients and I came home and you know, I put some oil in a pan. Well, I threw a solid chunk of swordfish into a frying pan. Can you imagine this? This is literally almost burning down the house. My husband walks in. He’s like, “What are you doing?” I’m like, “What? This is normal, right? You just throw in a frozen solid piece of fish into a hot skillet.” And he’s like, “No, you don’t.” I’m like, “Oh my God.” So it was a huge learning curve right there but we ended up saving the fish and it actually ended up being a really, really good sandwich and it was fantastic and I’ve been obsessed with lemon aioli and arugula and swordfish ever since.

It’s a funny story now. At the time, it was a little close to call in terms of almost burning down the house but yeah.

On Her Go-To Sources for Inspiration:

I have a couple. I mean, you have your standards like Food & Wine and Bon Appétit, they’re kind of always my go-to to make sure I’m staying with the industry and what’s going on and what’s relevant. I do look for other bloggers as inspiration. Jessica from How Sweet It Is is great. Joy the Baker is a nice kind of contrast because I’m not a baker so it’s nice to get like, “Oh, that’s what people do when they bake.” But I’m also inspired a lot by Heidi from FoodieCrush. She’s probably one of my favorite blogs to look at for inspiration because she does things so simple but they’re also creative as well.

On Deciding on What to Make for Dinner or Her Blog:

It’s interesting. I feel like it’s a simple process but it’s also like an easy process in terms of my cooking during the week is your basic chicken, potatoes, broccoli, rice. I just keep it simple because, to me, when I do stuff for the blog, it’s more adventurous. When I decide what I want to do for the blog, I always look at those simple meals that I make during the week and then I’m like, “How can we tweak this? How can we take a simple meal and then just take it to another level, like take a Middle Eastern twist on it or an Asian twist on it?” I think people get stuck in a rut, like I do, too. Just take the extra couple of minutes to figure out where else you can go with it.

On the Difference in Food Culture Between Denver and Chicago:

Denver is geared towards healthy lifestyle. Everything is outdoors, versus Chicago, I mean, Chicago is healthy, it’s just it’s more like heartier foods. So to me, when I moved here, my palette definitely changed. I still kind of keep things more towards a lighter side in cooking, whether it’s more fresh ingredients, local, those kinds of things just because Colorado has such a different dynamic. Like I was talking earlier, Colorado’s very centered around brunch. If you don’t have a good brunch at a restaurant, you can kiss your tuckus goodbye because you’re not going to be around. Or happy hour, those things. So my food is definitely geared around kind of those…you can eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner types of food versus like your three standard meals like in Chicago.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

I watch Restaurant Impossible. I love Robert, probably because we own restaurants and so when people go in there, I’m like, “Oh my God, they have no idea.”

I love Top Chef. I mean, I watch that. Quickfire Challenge, you name it, I would love to do it.

I probably would cry crocodile tears while I’m doing it but it would be the most fun ever. Plus I would love to meet Tom Colicchio.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

Definitely Real Food by Dad. Matt is amazing. He kind of is similar to the way I cook. His recipes are simple but also you’re like, “Damn, that is such a great idea.” And also, My Name is Yeh. She’s addicting. She has the best smile. Her recipes are just so fun. And also, Heidi at FoodieCrush. She’s a mentor. She’s good at what she does. She has a great editorial background and I think people could really learn a lot from her.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

Instagram is probably my most go-to as most people probably say. Ashlae from Oh, Ladycakes, her Instagram is this beautiful portfolio. She travels and creates beautiful food and to me, she makes it just look effortless. So to me, I appreciate that even though I know there’s some background to it. She’s just a really nice person in general too.

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

My onion goggles, no joke. I hate cutting onions and my husband got a gag gift one year, like someone gave him a pair of onion goggles. I was like, “This is ridiculous.” I tried them on. I’m telling you, they are lifesavers and no more tears. I look like a total dork but I swear, they’re my most treasured thing in the kitchen.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

Tabasco, which is funny because I literally just this past week, I did a whole week series with Tabasco. My husband loves Tabasco and so till I married him, I learned to love Tabasco. I love it now more than anything. It’s the best condiment ever.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

I always keep Jacques Pepin’s Essentials cookbook. The man is a genius and he’s been around forever and he knows so I pull that constantly just to remember how to make an aioli from scratch. To me, it’s a brilliant cookbook in terms of like, he’ll give you recipes but he’ll also break down what you need to know in a very simplified manner. It’s not over the top. It’s straightforward. I can’t recommend that book enough. It literally is a lifesaver.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

Like I mentioned earlier, Jason Isbell, his album, Southeastern. Me and my husband actually saw him in New York City live. He is probably one of the best artists to listen to because he’s a great storyteller and I feel like that is a basic way of when you’re cooking and you’re photographing and sharing this, it’s the perfect way just to set the tone of what you’re doing. He’s extremely talented and a wonderful singer and I highly recommend you check him out. He’s great.

On Keeping Posted with Lauren:

Definitely Instagram, Snapchat, and just checking out the blog because I am out there and constantly just trying to create recipes. I’m always there if you need me. So always check out the blog.

Melissa admits to having a severe sweet tooth, and on her blog, The Fauxmartha, is where she shares her tried-and-true recipes that she brightens up to suit each season. She confesses to being an over-sharer, and believes that when you find something that works, and works well, it must be shared.

I am so excited to have Melissa Coleman of The Fauxmartha joining me on the show today.

(*All images below are Melissa’s.)

On Cooking:

I came out of the womb loving food. My mom said I was four years old, sitting at the breakfast table, and she said I would be asking what we were having for lunch and dinner while eating breakfast. And she always told me, “Melissa, eat to live, don’t live to eat.” And I still live to eat and I eat to live. I love food.

So it started with a love of food and as I grew up, probably even as a little girl I would go over to my neighbor’s house and make cookies. I even loved to bake as a young girl and then in high school, as soon as I could kind of clean up my own messes, my mom would tell you otherwise, but I started baking in the kitchen and experimenting with all sorts of crazy stuff. People were so nice to try my stuff. And that just kind of continued.

Once we went to Chicago and I was on my own, married, three meals a day, I needed to somehow prepare and I liked knowing how to do things. I liked knowing the science behind things, I liked knowing how things work and I think that’s kind of what fuels cooking: how does this work? How does baking soda work with liquid in the oven, at what temperature?

In college, I think I was probably the only one doing this, I was watching Martha Stewart on the weekends, that was really cool. And then that fuelled the interest, and she talked a lot about theories behind stuff, so I learned enough to be able to talk about it. And then one Christmas I asked for, I think it was King Arthur Whole Grain Baking Cookbook, it was this huge thick cookbook. I think it was a pale pink. I read that thing from cover to cover. I learned about wheat and the germ and the endosperm, and everything. I learned how wheat is bitter and how to cut the bitterness.

I liked food so much I had to watch myself, so when I baked I tried to use wheat flour and then tried to lighten things up for a long time. I still use a lot of wheat flour now. But I guess I would attribute a lot of that knowledge to the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking bible. It’s chunky, it’s thick.

I have not read through it in a really long time. I’m sure a lot of bloggers, and just home cooks in general experience this. You make a lot of other people’s stuff at first, a whole lot, until you begin to learn what the ingredients do together, and what you like. And so now I have my cake recipe, or my bread recipe, or my muffin recipe, like a base recipe, and then I tweak it from there. So they are my recipes, but it’s a long heritage of people and books that I learned from.

On Her Passion for Food and Cooking:

I always liked to create even as a kid, and I think that’s a little bit of what food is for me too, it’s creating. But my background is in design, so I’ve been a graphic designer for a long time. When we moved to Chicago I had a design job and I liked it for a while, and then I didn’t like it for a while, and I just kept thinking. I had these long drives to work and I would just think, “There has got to be a way to merge my two loves. There has to be a way to merge design and to merge food.” And at that point I was always blogging, and I didn’t really know that those two were so inter-connected. The way I think about food, the way I think about recipes and writing the recipes is the way I think about design. How do I communicate this in a really simple but beautiful and real fashion?

I talked to a couple of other people who were struggling to figure out what do I do? I don’t even know what I want to do. And I always tell them, “Just play.” And that’s what blogging was and cooking was for a really long time, and probably still is in a lot of ways. But just play, and natural things come out. And that’s what it was for me.

On Not Being Creative or Adventurous with Food:

(Who she thinks is creative.) It’s Molly, Molly Yeh. She’s just so fun in the kitchen. She has fun with her recipes. She’s playful with her recipes. She plays, she really plays in the kitchen. I like her approach and it encourages me. Also, through the years, I’ve followed Turntable Kitchen and I like the spices that they use in recipes. They turned me on to cardamom and so did A Sweet Spoonful. Her granola recipe, marge granola that she makes, she uses cardamom. So things I wasn’t used to trying, I never grew up with, looking at their recipes, and making some of their recipes encouraged me to add those things into mine and explore a little bit.

So I’ll just tell you a little bit about my embarrassing story that happens over and over again. I get to a meal. I am with other people who would call themselves foodies and food enthusiasts, and they bring out a plate of burrata cheese and I’m, like, “Oh no, not cheese.” A big pile of cheese turns me off big time. It’s a texture issue, and it’s a mental issue. I kind of have the palate of a child. But it’s embarrassing every time, and every meal.

I went to an event the other week and at multiple meals I had to talk about my distaste for cheese, or I had to tell them I like mild cheddar cheese. I like Parmesan, I like a certain Feta that I can get at my co-op. It’s super-duper embarrassing, but I’ve learned to own it. It’s like, I don’t like cheese. And that’s okay, and I like to bake, and that’s okay. So I think just figure it out, just own it.

My husband has taught me that. He tells everybody before we go over to their house, “She likes this and she likes that.” I’m like, “Don’t tell them that, that’s so embarrassing.” But it helps. It’s not awkward. It’s way less awkward. So just own it.

On Her Tried-And-True Recipes:

Most of the times, it’s the food that we make over and over again. I find myself with blogging, I try to think of recipes sometimes for my blog, and I’m like I should just post the recipes we make. And I need to figure out how to articulate this recipe. But we make a lot of bowls, like food and bowls which start with a grain and some vegetables and some kind of protein which is usually beans for us and then a sauce, and it’s the things that we make over and over and over again. I almost want to delete any recipe that I’ve only made once. Because most of the recipes, we make them. My blog is my resource, that is what I cook from. And then I add new recipes that we make.

A lot of the inspiration has come from things that we have eaten out, or some of our favorite things that we have out, how can we make them at home? And, probably, how can we make them better and cheaper ourselves? And that’s kind of where they come from. We’re just pretty basic people, like when I am thinking up meals for the week, I start with a grain and then build the recipe around that. I either start with a grain or I start with the vegetable drawer.

The Pressure Cooker:

Which food shows or cooking shows do you watch?

None. None. None. I used to. We’ve just gotten Hulu. We were no cable people for a long time. I watch Rick Bayless sometimes on PBS because we can stream it through an antenna.

What are some food blogs or food websites we have to know about?

A new one to me is Renée Kemps; her photography is beautiful. I go to her site to just bask in the photography. And then Love, Cake. She is actually who I base my scone recipe off of. Her recipes are so good. It’s a baking blog. I think she even has a culinary background. Her photos are beautiful. Go to Love, Cake.

We make a lot of bowls, and they can get kind of mundane and redundant, so I go to Pinch of Yum because Yum has all the sauces in the world. They are quick and easy and they come together in no time, so go to Pinch of Yum for your sauces.

Who do you follow on Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook or Snapchat that make you happy?

So, I’m a Pinterest delinquent. I’m barely on Pinterest. Facebook, I follow Cookie and Kate again. I love her recipes. She has roundups, which are so nice, because I just need a lot of ideas.

I like FoodieCrush on Facebook, she also has a ton of ideas. She is fun and playful.

Instagram is my time suck. I spend all my time there. I love Instagram. Again, I love Renée Kemps; her stuff is beautiful. Gosh, she’s the one that stands out the most to me. I love her stuff right now.

And then Snapchat, I am not going to join. I have to save my time somewhere. I spend it all on Instagram, so…

What is the most unusual or treasured item in your kitchen?

I am going to go with treasured; it’s not unusual, it’s very every day but it’s my chef’s knife. I have used it so much; I use it multiple times a day. The handle is starting to chip away, which it shouldn’t. It’s never spent a day in the dishwasher, but I use it so much that it is well loved.

Name one ingredient you used to dislike but now you love.

I would say I am working on cheese. Feta; I like certain Feta. It’s got to be pretty fresh.

What are a few cookbooks that make your life better?

Whole-Grain Mornings, it’s by Megan Gordon, I mentioned her earlier. I love that cookbook. It’s like a handbook for brunch, which is our favorite meal. And then naturally I love Erin’s new cookbook, The Easy Vegetarian Kitchen. It’s like a really resourceful vegetarian handbook, seasonal, so she’s got a base recipe and then how to make it across the seasons. I’d say those are the two dirtiest books in our house, which means they are well used and well loved.

What song or album just makes you want to cook?

I listen to Sylvan Esso. I don’t know if people know of her. We listen to her over and over again. Her song Play It Right is kind of a little too mellow, but it works for me, and my daughter walks around the house saying, “Play it right, play it right, play it right.”

On Keeping Posted with Melissa:

I am so simple. I find the one thing that works is Instagram. You can find me there always.

Hello! I'm Gabriel Soh, home cook, food enthusiast and your host of The Dinner Special podcast.
Everything here on The Dinner Special is an experiment, just like with cooking. Thank you for listening and being part of the adventure.